


A First Foray Into Violence

by McBeard_Creative



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen, Short, Short & Sweet, Shorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 21:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20749298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McBeard_Creative/pseuds/McBeard_Creative
Summary: This short story tells of the first time the dwarven cleric Erend Blazinghelm was called to do battle.It spawned from a pre-session writing prompt that asked each player to tell of a time their character felt truly afraid.I wrote too much.





	A First Foray Into Violence

When Erend was around 25 years old and had been studying in earnest at the temple under the mountain for 5 or so years his younger sister (15 at the time and rebellious as any teenager at that age) went missing one day. She'd always liked to run and hide by herself and this had been allowed because the mountain was a safe place overall, but she'd always been back within a day. When she failed to show up for breakfast the second day in a row, his parents began to worry. She had had a fight with her mother earlier that week - the topic isn't important, because it never is when things like this happen. A search was launched. 

The guards at the gate reported that one of the patrols going out had had an extra soldier with them but that the soldier had been rushing to catch up to her compatriots who were a few minutes ahead of her and now that they thought of it, they'd never actually seen her face as she ran past. A sending was performed to contact her. It succeeded, but what she replied sent a cold chill down everyone’s spine. She managed to communicate the rough direction she'd headed and that she was currently hiding from a pair of hill giants and their adolescent dire wolf who's attention she'd inadvertently drawn with her campfire. Even through the limited capacity of the sending spell, her terror was clear. 

Erend insisted on joining one of the rescue parties, even knowing how dangerous hill giants could be. This would prove to be the start of a long pattern of getting involved in fighters he probably shouldn’t. He promised his parents and mentors he would stay to the back of the fight so as not to end up in a tangle with something far out of his weight class, a promise he legitimately tried to keep. He was terrified the whole way out, doubting himself having never actually fought for keeps before. The foe could be too strong, he could try to do real harm to an enemy and find he doesn’t possess the ability or stomach for it, or he could arrive to find his sister dead already. These things he tried to push to the back of his mind, as he was determined to not make a burden of himself. A king needs to be strong, after all. 

His party was the first to find the searching giants and fell upon them without mercy. While Erend threw fire at the foes from a distance and healed his comrades when they retreated from the brawl, the direwolf circled around and nearly caught him off guard. The fear he'd been feeling for his sister and the fear at having a large beast trying to rip his throat out briefly crystallized around him, and for an instant he was too terrified to move. The instant passed, the crystal shattered, and in a rush of exhilaration he swung his hammer into the wolf’s skull, knocking it to the side as it lunged at him and following it with a blast of flame and a bark of laughter. This was his first real taste of battle, and he’s never forgotten the rush he experienced the first time he experienced the freedom to truly let loose with violence and power in service to good.

In the end the giants were slain and his sister was returned home safely. His actions garnered him respect from the soldiers he’d fought with and the Bayraine military at large as a result.. He’d proven himself competent as a back line spellslinger, a healer, and a rear guard with a mean hammer arm.


End file.
